In a university setting, classes tend to follow a traditional model: the professor lectures, students take notes and then they complete their assignments outside of the classroom setting.

But the Engineering and Education Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh's Swanson School of Engineering found that for some classes, this model simply wasn't as effective as it could be. So they flipped it – students now watch lectures outside of class and use their class time for more active learning.

"It's a much more engaging environment for the faculty to work with the students, and the students get more experiential learning opportunities," said Mary Besterfield-Sacre, director of the EERC.

I sat down with Besterfield-Sacre, associate professor and Fulton C. Noss Faculty Fellow in the department of industrial engineering, on Wednesday to talk about the flipped model and the work she and her colleagues have been doing at the EERC.

The EERC, which was launched in 2011, has a three-fold mission: bring research into the classroom, develop next-generation faculty members and expand engineering education research. Besterfield-Sacre said while flipping isn't a new area in education, it has become the hot area as of late with the advances made in technology and massively open online courses.

This semester, the Swanson School launched four flipped classes, with another two planned to go live in the spring. Besterfield-Sacre said they looked at the core of the engineering curriculum and evaluated which classes would be most conducive to switching to a flipped model.

Professors record their lectures, and then they are broken down into 10-minute segments for students to watch online outside of class.

"We know the attention span of students is about 10 to 15 minutes, so by packaging a 50-minute lecture into smaller, more digestible segments, students are more likely to retain that information," she said.

Additionally, as anyone who has been on Fifth Avenue in Oakland has noticed, students are increasingly reliant on their mobile devices, so breaking videos into short segments makes it ideal for them to watch on the bus or when they have brief breaks throughout their day.

Prior to going to class, they complete low-stakes accountability assignments, which are turned in early enough so that professors can see if there are any areas they need to revise and go over again during class. The remainder of the class time is used to work on group projects and assignments that allow students to engage with faculty, receive input and discuss what they learned from the lecture.

Research shows, on average, people retain about 50 percent of the information they see in a video, but Besterfield-Sacre said if the students then go to class and have to explain what they have seen, that retention rate jumps up to 80 percent or 90 percent.

She said they have not received any major complaints from students enrolled in flipped courses and have found that it makes them more accountable for their learning.

"From a student perspective, traditionally they have learned very passively, they come to class, listen, take notes to stay awake and then go out and do the homework," Besterfield-Sacre said. "Now what's happened is they are becoming very much accountable for their own education."